Steve Castle says his Royston Town outfit showed a ‘lot of character’ to twice come from behind in games against fellow Southern League Division One Central side Northwood and eventually book their place in FA Trophy second round qualifying after a 4-1 replay win on Tuesday night.

Town stuttered to a 2-2 home draw with The Woods on Saturday, going a goal down before striking back through Josh Castiglione and Ryan Ingrey.

Frankie Jones’ leveller forced a midweek replay in South Hertfordshire but despite finding themselves behind inside the first five minutes through Luke Heneghan’s instinctive finish, goals from Castiglione, Simon Thomas, Martel Powell and Scott Bridges ensured the Crows’ safe passage.

They will now host Southern League Division One South & West side Wimborne Town in the next round a week on Saturday (November 12) and manager Castle was satisfied following the comfortable success.

Castle told the Crow: “I wouldn’t say we were down to the bare bones [Tuesday night] but there were a lot of lads out there that were carrying little knocks and people just below-par weather-wise so we had to dig deep and produce the performance, especially in the second half, that was more like us.

“We were comfortable but in that first 10 minutes they got themselves up so that was a bit lax on our part. I’m not going to give the lads any excuses out of that but we just started poorly.

“We’ll maybe have to address that one but we’ve shown an awful lot of character in two games now to come from one goal down.”

Town remain in pole position in the league and are making steady progress in cup competitions so the boss is upbeat about his team’s current form.

He continued: “We’re at home to a team that’s at the same level in the next round so we want to avoid a replay. They’ve got to do the long journey from near Bournemouth.

“The Farnborough league game has been postponed because of the trophy so they’ve got to come to us in midweek now so it’s all good news.

“We’ve dipped a little bit in our play but it’s our eighth game unbeaten so I’m really pleased.”